Heaven Painted as a Free Meal Read online

  As he moved back toward the runway, the jump plane came barreling in, far faster than normal, bounced twice and came to a grinding halt about four hundred paces down the runway.

  It quickly taxied off the main concrete and stopped, its two engines cutting out.

  He laughed and waved. The pilots must have seen him stream in and dove for the runway to get to him.

  He glanced up.

  Four wings were deployed above him and he waved up at them to try to let them know he was all right.

  Deanna must be scared out of her mind. If he had watched her stream in, he didn’t know what he would have done.

  He went back under the big tree to gather up his chutes and get his helmet. He just couldn’t believe he was alive and walking around after that. He really needed to figure out what had happened.

  This might just get written up in a bunch of jump magazines.

  The two pilots from the plane were both running his way as he wrapped up his chutes into a twisted mess in his arms.

  Both pilots ran past him, not even seeing him.

  “Over here, guys,” Elliot shouted.

  They didn’t hear him.

  After about twenty more steps to the other side of the tree line, both of them slowed, then stopped.

  Then one of them turned and threw up.

  Elliot dropped the chutes and headed in that direction. Clearly someone else had had a problem as well and he hadn’t seen it happening. He knew Deanna was above him, so it couldn’t have been her.

  He ran ten steps and then slowed and stopped and looked up.

  Four wings were lining up for landing near the edge of the runway.

  There had only been five jumpers.

  He was the fifth.

  He moved slowly toward the two pilots who had backed away from what had caused one of them to lose his lunch.

  Two chutes were strung out along the ground as his had been. They looked exactly like his chutes.

  And tied into the end of them was a blurry image of what looked to be a human body.

  He stopped about ten paces away and tried to get his eyes to focus on the body.

  His stomach was twisted into a knot.

  He had to look.

  He had to know.

  And then his vision cleared and he could see his own twisted body there on the ground, blood everywhere, bones sticking out of skin, neck twisted into a position that no neck could ever be twisted.

  He was dead.

  There was no doubt he was dead.

  He hadn’t survived the jump.

  He turned and staggered away from his own body, making it back to the base of the big oak tree before dropping to the ground.

  As a person who faced death in so many ways in so many sports, he thought he would be prepared.

  But seeing his own body like that was something else.

  Nothing could prepare a person for that.

  And then, through the clear evening air he heard a scream like none he could have ever imagined.

  Two of his friends were holding Deanna back from getting too close. But clearly she had seen enough.

  She screamed once more and then dropped to the ground.

  “I’m so sorry, Deanna,” he said softly. “So very, very sorry.”

  FOUR

  JEWEL AND TOMMY and K.J. appeared next to a small airport runway standing on soft dirt covered in a thin layer of newly sprouted grass. A fairly large two-prop plane sat to one side of the runway and a half-dozen police cars and an ambulance with lights still flashing were scattered along the edge of the runway. Jewel noticed that all of them had left tire tracks in the soft ground.

  The sun was low on the horizon and the air had a spring bite to it. Normally this would be the type of evening Jewel would love, but not when death was involved.

  There looked to be four other skydivers sitting on the ground near the edge of the runway and most of the police activity was centered around a twisted body in the low-cut grass.

  “Where is Elliot?” Tommy asked K.J.

  K.J. just shrugged. “He’s here somewhere. The newly dead seldom roam far from their bodies.”

  “Not miles like we did, huh?” Tommy said.

  Jewel laughed as K.J. just shrugged and looked sheepish. She and Tommy had been killed far out in the mountains. It had taken them hours to leave their crash site, so mostly K.J. was right.

  “Is that his girlfriend?” Jewel asked, pointing to the only woman skydiver in the group of four. She had short brown hair and seemed tall, even while sitting.

  She had her head down between her knees.

  K.J. nodded. “Deanna Teel. She’s going to join us in two months. She and Elliot are a couple. Very close from what I understand.”

  “This has to be really hard on her,” Jewel said.

  “I see him,” Tommy said and started off across the field toward the grove of oak and willow trees just starting to get their spring leaves.

  A guy was sitting against the trunk of one of the big oak trees, seeming to just watch. He had on a gray jumpsuit that looked to be expensive and made of some strange material that almost shined.

  “I sure hope there are no horse piles out here,” K.J. said as he and Jewel followed Tommy.

  “The ground does feel soft, doesn’t it,” Jewel said.

  “Oh, yuck, I just got these shoes,” K.J. said.

  Tommy walked up to Elliot and stuck out his hand as if meeting the guy on a street corner. “Elliot West I presume?”

  Elliot sort of looked at the hand being offered, but didn’t take it.

  “I’m Elliot West,” he said. “Or I used to be.”

  He pointed to the crowd of cops around the body.

  “You still are,” Jewel said. “Just living outside that body now.”

  Elliot looked up at them and shook his head. “I didn’t think people could see ghosts.”

  “They can’t,” K.J. said as he checked the bottoms of his red slipper-like shoes.

  Jewel decided she needed to take over this fairly quickly. “I’m Jewel, this is Tommy, and this is K.J.”

  “So where’s my white light?” Elliot asked. “My tunnel. If I’m dead I wouldn’t mind seeing my dad again.”

  Jewel knelt in front of Elliot and smiled. “We can explain all that if you give us a little time.”

  He looked at her, clearly still very much in shock.

  She remembered that feeling well.

  She glanced back at Tommy and K.J. “Remember the Sizzler table we took Nancy and Belle to after their accident?”

  Tommy nodded. “I’ll jump there and make sure the table is open.

  He vanished.

  “Now that’s pretty creepy,” Elliot said. “I’m really seeing things now, of that there is no doubt.”

  Jewel offered her hand. “Come on, let’s get to a place we can talk and explain what’s happening.”

  Elliot looked at her hand and then nodded and took it.

  His grip was firm, his hands slightly rough.

  They both stood. And he looked over at Deanna.

  “Anything I can do to help her?”

  “Not at the moment,” Jewel said. “You and K.J. stay here and I’ll go give her some reassurance and help.”

  “Will she be able to see you? Or me?” Elliot asked.

  Jewel shook her head. “No. But stay here and I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll stay with him,” K.J. said. “My shoes seem to have survived one transit of that cow-pie mess.”

  Jewel just shook her head and moved quickly over the soft field toward the group of skydivers and the woman with her head between her knees.

  Jewel, without touching any of the others, moved in close to Deanna and touched her.

  A moment later Jewel was completely inside Deanna.

  The grief that Deanna was feeling was like a wall slamming into Jewel, but Jewel had felt this before and she sent calming thoughts through to Deanna.

  Then she repeated over and over that
Elliot loved her and that she would get to see him again in time and that he was all right where he was.

  And as Deanna calmed some, pushed the grief back slightly, Jewel noticed something else.

  Something very black and growing inside Deanna.

  Cancer.

  A nasty brain tumor.

  And the cancer had spread from Deanna’s brain through the rest of her body. Deanna had known something was wrong and had gone in for tests last week. She had just gotten the results earlier that very afternoon and hadn’t yet told Elliot.

  She hadn’t known how to tell Elliot, actually.

  She had only two months to live. There was nothing anyone could do. It had spread far, far too much.

  Jewel gave the thought to Deanna that she would see Elliot shortly, that he would be waiting for her, that he would be with her through her coming trial, and then she left Deanna’s body.

  Jewel moved back across the field, feeling the full intensity of the tragedy around her. Two young and very smart people struck down in the prime of their lives.

  “K.J.,” Jewel said before Elliot could ask her anything, “get us to that restaurant.”

  An instant later the runway and the wide fields and ambulance and cop cars vanished, replaced by the noise of people talking and laughing and eating in the wonderful rich smell of steak.

  FIVE

  ELLIOT WAS CONVINCED he was now dreaming, that his accident had just been a bad dream, and now things were just twisting into silliness in his dream.

  He glanced around to find himself in the Sizzler Restaurant out near the mall in Boise. He had eaten here a few times while out in this part of town shopping, but it was a long way from his and Deanna’s condo against the foothills.

  The place was decorated in all wood, with polished wood tables, wood beams and posts, and wood chairs and booths. It was huge, with over a hundred seats. Through the windows, he could see cars moving past and going into the mall parking lot just like any other spring evening.

  The guy named Tommy, who looked nice enough and seemed to smile a lot, was sitting at a large wooden table in a closed section of the restaurant. The table could hold ten at least.

  Elliot had a good feeling about all three of these people, even though they were just part of his dream. If he had met them in real life, outside the dream, he would have liked them. Even the strange guy in the expensive gray suit and pink hat and pink shoes.

  He sure didn’t fit in Boise, but he seemed like a good guy.

  They all three seemed to be about his age at thirty. And all three seemed to be in good shape, including the K.J. guy.

  Jewel, the woman who had gone to comfort Deanna and then vanished inside Deanna, indicated that Elliot should take a chair, so he did.

  K.J. sat beside Tommy and Jewel sat on the other side.

  Jewel seemed almost shaken by her contact with Deanna, so Elliot decided to start there.

  “What’s happening with Deanna?”

  Jewel glanced at K.J., then shook her head. “We have time for that, but first we have to show you some things.”

  “And explain a few things,” Tommy said.

  Elliot nodded and sat back. “Explain away and then I’m going to wake up, either in bed at home or in the hospital and laugh at all this.”

  “Yeah,” Tommy said, “thought that same thing for a short time when I died.”

  That death part just wasn’t sinking in for Elliot. He had always lived fully. Being dead had never been part of the plan.

  He was alive. He could feel it. Dreaming, sure, but alive.

  “First off,” Jewel said, seeming to sense what he was thinking, “you really are dead. That really was your body out there in that field.”

  Elliot nodded, trying to keep his stomach calm, remembering his chute tangled with his safety chute in the worst streamer imaginable.

  “Most people, meaning almost everyone,” Tommy said, “die and just pass into the next world.”

  “And before you ask,” K.J. said, holding up a hand to stop the next obvious question, “no one knows what’s on the other side. And I honestly don’t want to know, thank you very much.”

  Elliot nodded again, just letting them talk. He had to admit, this all felt real, but he’d had dreams before that had felt real.

  He had learned as a defense attorney that it was better to just let a client talk and get it all out before asking too many questions.

  But if this was a dream, it was sure a vivid one. The steak smell was making him really hungry. If he was dead, how come he was hungry?

  “You did not pass into the next world after your accident because you are being recruited for a special team,” Jewel said.

  “We are all Ghost of a Chance agents,” Tommy said. “Our job is to fight bad stuff and help people. Sort of like you do in your job as a defense attorney.”

  “More like a superhero team in the comics,” Elliot said, laughing. “Now I know I’m dreaming.”

  “Sort of like that,” K.J. said, laughing with him. “Think of this as a superhero team with a bunch of dead people and a bisexual one-hundred-year-old ghost leading it. I like that. Think I could get someone to do some panels?”

  Elliot just shook his head and started to stand. “If I really am a ghost, I need to get back to the airport to see how Deanna’s doing.”

  “She’s doing fine,” Jewel said. “And you can see her later if you want, but we need to get you more information first.”

  “You need to know some of what you can do and can’t do,” Tommy said.

  “Like this,” K.J. said.

  The small guy with the pink hat stood and walked with great flair, like he was on a modeling runway, right through the middle of the table, through a neighboring table, and off toward the salad bar, where he grabbed three cherry tomatoes and ate them on the way back while walking through things.

  “How…? Elliot asked, but he couldn’t get the question to even form.

  “Everything has what we call a ghost element to it,” Jewel said.

  Jewel knocked on the top of the table as if it was solid, then stuck her hand through it.

  There was a ketchup bottle on the table and she picked it up. Suddenly she had a bottle in her hand and an original bottle stayed in its place.

  “Everything, including food, has a ghost element to it,” Tommy said.

  Then he smiled at Elliot. “Are you starting to feel better? Maybe better than you have felt in a long time?”

  Elliot had to admit that he was. And the smells of the restaurant were more intense as well. He had been hungry before they went out for the two evening jumps. Now with the fantastic smells around him, he was famished.

  “So I’m a ghost and I can eat?” Elliot asked.

  “One of the many pleasures,” K.J. said. “And the food is always free and tastes wonderful.”

  “Free?” Elliot asked. He had always believed in paying for anything he used or ate. Getting something for free wasn’t the way he lived the world. He worked for his food and money.

  “It’s free,” Jewel said, “because we don’t actually take anything. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  She stood and Elliot stood with her.

  “More dessert,” Tommy said, laughing and standing and clapping his hands as he went with them.

  Jewel led Elliot toward the large salad bar. “Pick up a bowl.”

  He reached down and picked up a ceramic salad bowl. It felt real and solid in his hand.

  But the stack didn’t go down.

  “You have in your hand the ghost element of that top bowl,” Jewel said. “If you put it on the counter and leave it for an hour or so, it will just vanish.”

  She had him put the bowl down and then follow her over toward the kitchen door where a couple of waiters and waitresses were coming out of the kitchen with trays of food.

  “How do you like your steaks?” she asked.

  “Medium rare,” he said.

  She nodded and then motioned for them
to follow a waitress with five meals on a tray toward a table near the salad bar. She pointed to one plate on the tray as the waitress set the big tray on a stand.

  “Grab that one,” Jewel said. “It’s got the medium rare tag in it.”

  Elliot didn’t much like the idea of taking another person’s food, even though it was clear no one could see them and this was a dream. Who knew he had ethics even while dreaming.

  He did as Jewel instructed, picking up the heavy plate, feeling the heat from the bottom against his hand.

  But the original meal stayed on the tray.

  Jewel indicated he should bring the plate and follow her.

  She grabbed some silverware and napkins on the way back to the table. Ghost silverware, ghost napkins, Elliot noted.

  After he was seated back at the table with the meal in front of him, Tommy and K.J. came back, both carrying some sort of pudding dessert.

  Jewel indicated that Elliot should eat.

  He looked at the steak and baked potato and then back at Jewel. “I’m not eating that person’s dinner?”

  Jewel shook her head. “Nope, that person has their dinner, the real dinner. You are just eating the ghost element of the food.”

  Elliot cut into the steak and took a bite.

  The sensation was like nothing he had ever imagined. The taste seemed to explode in his mouth, the steak itself seemed to almost melt. It was the best-tasting steak he had ever had, without a doubt.

  Nothing else had ever come close.

  He closed his eyes and just enjoyed the flavor, savoring it for a moment. Then when he opened his eyes, Tommy, K.J., and Jewel were all smiling at him.

  “One of the many perks about being dead,” Tommy said. “The food just flat tastes wonderful.”

  “You think the food is good,” K.J, said, laughing. “Wait until you try sex. Worth dying for, let me say.”

  Elliot looked at Jewel, then at Tommy. “Ghosts can have sex as well?”

  “Like rabbits,” Tommy said, laughing.

  But Jewel was looking serious and considering how much fun Tommy and K.J. were having teaching him the ropes of being dead, that made no sense.

  Elliot took another bite of steak and tried to think, tried to come up with more questions. But the steak tasted so damned good, and he was so hungry, he couldn’t think of a one.